Fort Pillow, Meeman-Shelby state parks still recovering from storm damage

Kennedy Young, a maintenance worker at Meeman-Shelby State Park has been busy for the past week using his chain-saw to cut up downed trees. State parks north of Memphis sustained heavy damage from ice storms during the past month. Fort Pillow State Historic Park and Meeman-Shelby Forest State Park lost thousands of trees, and cleanup work continues.

Special to The Commercial Appeal

Almost exactly 150 years after the bloody Civil War encounter at Fort Pillow, nature laid a destructive siege of its own at the West Tennessee outpost.

Three ice storms and a snowstorm between Jan. 19 and Feb. 11 felled thousands of trees and limbs in Fort Pillow State Historic Park, located about 60 miles north of Memphis along the Mississippi River. Two weeks after the last storm, a 4-inch snowfall, the park is open, with roads and trails mostly cleared, but cleanup work continues.

"There's trees down everywhere," said park manager Robby Tidwell.

Fort Pillow was one of two popular state parks in West Tennessee to experience heavy damage from winter storms that only grazed Memphis.

Meeman-Shelby Forest State Park, located near Millington in the northwest corner of Shelby County, also sustained damage from a Feb. 4 ice storm. Ice-laden limbs and trees fell across roads and trails, through there was no significant damage to park offices or cabins.

"We've still got trees down, limbs down, but we're working to clean them up," said interim park manager James Wilkinson. "It's been a long time since we've had this many trees down."

The two parks are popular weekend and day-trip destinations for Memphis-area residents. At 13,476 acres, Meeman-Shelby Forest is among of the most heavily used parks in the state system, attracting 847,000 visits in 2013. Fort Pillow, encompassing 1,650 acres, draws more than 300,000 visitors annually.

Despite the damage, officials at both parks said the cleanup and repairs won't have any significant effects on their budgets. Cost estimates for the work weren't available, officials said, because they involved employees already working for the parks.

"I am out $200 worth of chain-saw chains," Tidwell said.

He said crews using chain saws, wood-chippers and other equipment spent days clearing roads and trails at the park. He said the damage was the worst Fort Pillow has experienced since at least 1985.

Officials are working to have all repair and cleanup completed in time for the April 12-13 observance of the 150th anniversary of the battle in which Confederate forces captured the fort. The 1864 battle is perhaps best known for what many historians call the massacre of black Union troops defending the fort, although accounts of the event remain subject to some debate even today.

Like Fort Pillow, Meeman-Shelby Forest is open and roads and most trails have been cleared, Wilkinson said. The group Friends of the Forest, which conducts volunteer work in the park, helped with the clearing of trails and other areas.

Wilkinson said the heavy amount of tree debris was mostly recycled. Some of the downed limbs and trees were pulled into washes, or erosion gulleys, to reduce erosion. Others were cut up to supply firewood for cabins and campgrounds.

Cedar trees in certain parts of the park were hardest hit by the ice damage, Wilkinson said. But the only damage to structures occurred when a falling tree or limb pulled a meter box off a cabin.